In this lesson, you will find Russian expressions used to tell where you come from and you will learn:

Countries and nationalities names

Basic info about Russian cases

Basic info about Russian grammatical gender

I. Let me introduce myself

Listen and answer the question:

c0203011.I.1)

Record 1

1. This man's name is:

Mark

Alex

2. He is from:

France

Spain

c0203012.I.2)

Record 2

1. This woman's name is:

Olga

Dorothy

2. She is from:

Ukraine

Russia

II. Countries

a) Listen and repeat. Pay attention to the nouns' endings:

Transcription

Россия - из России

[rassiya - iz rassii]

Russia - from Russia

Великобритания – из Великобритании

[vilikabritaniya - iz vilikabritanii]

Great Britain - from Great Britain

Австралия – из Австралии

[afstraliya - iz afstralii]

Australia - from Australia

Франция – из Франции

[frantsiya - is frantsii]

France - from France

Канада – из Канады

[kanada - is kanadi]

Canada - from Canada

США – из США

[se she a - is se she a]

the USA - from the USA

Basic information about cases

In Russian, the form of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numbers may change depending on their role in the sentence or for some other reasons. Such word form changes usually manifest themselves in the word's ending alteration. For example, we can see in the phrase above, that nouns forms given in the dictionary (on the right) and nouns following the preposition изfrom have different endings. At the same time, there are some nouns, including abbreviations (for example, СШАUSA), that do not change and always have the same form.

Such changes of word forms are closely related to the concept of cases in Russian. A case is a set of word forms that is used to perform certain functions in a sentence or phrase. For example, nouns forms that are given in the dictionary usually play the role of the subject in a sentence. These forms are called nominative case forms. In other words, the nominative case is used to indicate the subject of the sentence.

c) Give a positive or a negative answer following the model and check yourself:

Model 1

Вы из Канады? (Canada)[vi is kanadi?]

-

Да, я из Канады.[da, ya is kanadi]

Are you from Canada? (Canada) - Yes, I am from Canada.

Model 2

Вы из США? (Canada)[vi is se she a?]

-

Нет, я из Канады.[nyet, ya is kanadi]

Are you from the USA? (Canada) - No, I am from Canada.

Questions

Вы из России? (Russia) - ...

[vi iz rasii? ]

Check yourself

Вы из США? (USA) - ...

[vi is se she a? ]

Check yourself

Вы из Великобритании? (Australia) - ...

[vi iz vilikabritanii? ]

Check yourself

Вы из Австралии? (Canada) - ...

[vi iz afstralii? ]

Check yourself

Вы из Франции? (France) - ...

[vi is frantsii? ]

Check yourself

III. Nationalities

a) Listen and repeat. Pay attention to the nouns endings:

Transcription

британец / британка

[britanits - britanka]

Briton (male) / Briton (female)

русский / русская

[rooskiy - rooskaya]

Russian (male) / Russian (female)

француз / француженка

[frantsoos - frantsoojinka]

French (male) / French (female)

канадец / канадка

[kanadits - kanatka]

Canadian (male) / Canadian (female)

австралиец / австралийка

[afstraliits - afstraliyka]

Australian (male) / Australian (female)

американец / американка

[amirikanits - amirikanka]

American (male) / American (female)

Basic info about grammatical gender

All Russian nouns have gender, masculine, feminine or neuter, without regard what they mean, a person or an object. In the majority of instances, you can determine the grammatical gender of a noun based on its ending of the dictionary form. Thus, feminine nouns usually end in -а/-я, masculine nouns usually end in a hard consonant or -й, neuter nouns usually end in -о or -е.

IV. Personal pronouns

a) Learn the following Russian pronouns:

Transcription

он

[on]

he*

она

[ana]

she*

оно

[ano]

it

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are words used in place of a noun or another pronoun to indicate the speaker (first person, in English the pronouns "I", "we"), the person or persons to whom one is speaking (second person, in English the pronoun "You"), and persons and objects spoken about (third person, in English the pronouns "he", "she", "it", "they").